Saudi Arabia says it destroyed a Houthi drone before it reached Mecca

He set out a threshold in unusually explicit terms. "The security of the Two Holy Mosques and the pilgrims is a red line," he said.

He called it "an attempt to target the birthplace of revelation".

The Joint Forces Command said it would "not hesitate to take the necessary and deterrent measures".

The Houthi response

The Houthis rejected the account.

A Houthi military source said: "We categorically deny that there is any threat from Yemen directed at the city of Mecca or any other holy sites," and condemned what the source called misinformation.

Separately, the Houthi military spokesman Brigadier General Yahya Saree did not address the drone directly but countered with a claim of his own, saying coalition aircraft had carried out 52 airstrikes in 24 hours, hitting civilian infrastructure including schools and bridges.

Neither account has been independently verified.

Why Mecca changes the register

The significance is not the drone, which was destroyed, but the target.

It is the first time the Houthis have been accused of targeting Mecca in almost a decade. The previous occasion was in July 2017, when Saudi air defences intercepted a ballistic missile fired towards Makkah over the Al-Wasliya area of Taif province, with no reported damage or injuries.

A security alert was issued in Mecca on Tuesday, the first there since 2017, and lifted within minutes. The same alert was activated for Taif and Jeddah.

The week it sits in

The attempt comes during a sharp escalation against Saudi territory.

On Monday, 13 civilians were injured by ballistic missile attacks on Khamis Mushait, Abha and Taif. In the preceding week, more than 70 people were injured across several Saudi cities.

On Friday, Saudi Arabia shut its East-West crude pipeline after drone attacks in the Riyadh and Madinah regions — the route it uses to move oil to the Red Sea without passing through the Strait of Hormuz.

The Houthis have also completed their control of the Bab el-Mandeb strait at the southern end of the Red Sea, and have said Saudi vessels are barred from it.

What the red line means in practice

Al-Malki's phrase is a statement of intent rather than a description of a measure. The coalition has not said what a response would consist of, or whether one is coming.

What the language does establish is a category. The attacks of the past week — on Khamis Mushait, Abha, Taif and the East-West pipeline — drew no comparable phrase from the coalition.